GUARDIAN
A Company of Vision

 GUARDIAN ANSWERS THE QUESTION:

 What is OE Glass?

While the strictest answer is actually quite simple and basic, the common misuses of the term often cause confusion.

When General Motors, Chrysler and other vehicle manufacturers award glass contracts to Guardian, only that specific glass Guardian sends to the assembly plant which is actually installed into the new vehicle can be truly called original equipment (OE).  Even though we then take some of those exact same parts from the same production run on the same day on the same machines made by the same people in the same U.S. plant and then ship them to our valued aftermarket customers-by the strictest definition they would have to be called "replacement." While Chrysler, for example, does not allow us to use their name or logo on the windshields we send into the Guardian aftermarket, you may observe that Guardian's identifying "DOT-22" appears on our OE product as well as our aftermarket one.  Common usage in these cases is not too strict, however, and most people would correctly call all these parts OE.

There are U.S. glass manufacturers who get U.S. assembly plant contracts and send glass to those assembly plants from their U.S. glass factories.  However, the parts they send out into the replacement market are often parts they have had copied at other facilities they own in places such as Mexico. The parts may carry the same brand name, but they are sometimes inferior in quality to those made in the company's U.S. plants. While some well-intentioned but misguided people might still call those parts "OE,” we do not.

When people refer to OE glass, what they often mean is glass made by an OE glass manufacturer.  For example, if an OE glass manufacturer makes a replacement part to fit a Ford car, but that manufacturer was never a supplier to a Ford assembly plant, some people still call that part OE. We do not. Whether or not it is of OE quality, however, depends on that manufacturer's expertise.  If that Ford replacement part is made by Guardian, then it is of OE quality even though it might not be called OE.

Indeed, there seems to be a general presumption that an OE glass manufacturer always produces OE quality glass that can simply be called OE even when it isn't. That is no longer simply a matter of definition!  The quality may or may not be there!

All Guardian automotive glass products sold in North America are manufactured in the United States by the same conscientious, dedicated American workers at the same state-of-the-art U.S. facilities to the same exacting standards as the products that Guardian sends to the assembly plants. While it is not true for every OE glass manufacturer, if it came from Guardian, it is absolutely OE quality every time, regardless of what you call it.

GUARDIAN INDUSTRIES CORP.   AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTS GROUP